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 could bear to go without one moment of love's sweet life!" he cried. "And now we must part."

He took her hands in his and gently kissed them, while she looked away seeing only his face, for it had long since filled the world.

He turned abruptly into the hall, and, moving to the door with swift step, he saw lying on the silver tray the card of the lawyer he had met an hour ago. In a moment it flashed over him that Kate was the unknown messenger. He had not dreamed her fortune of such magnitude.

He seized the card and rushed back into the room.

"Is that your lawyer's name?" he gasped.

She smiled and nodded her head in assent.

"And I never dreamed it possible!"

He looked at her as though in a trance.

"Yes, I will confess now. You have confessed to me. My fortune came direct from my grandmother, who willed me her farm on which the oil was discovered. My father's fortune is worth perhaps five hundred thousand dollars. Mine was worth about two million dollars. I have given one to you. I may give you the other if you ask it. One was all you asked."

Again he took her to his heart.

"I have misread the message. Such love is in itself divine, and its own defense. You are mine by the higher law of life. I will not give you up—you are mine, mine! I will defy the world. I loved my child-wife. I was honest then. I will be honest